Christian-baiting has, of late, become something of a fictional trend. Philip Pullman goaded believers last year with his take on the New Testament, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, which gave Jesus a manipulative twin brother. And Michel Faber's novel The Fire Gospel saw Jesus die ignominiously on the cross with the entreaty: "Please, somebody, please finish me."

But literary aficionados know that if it's real controversy they're after, there's no one better than James Frey. His bestselling 2003 memoir, A Million Little Pieces, contained various fabrications about his life as an alcoholic drug addict; his new novel, The Final Testament of the Holy Bible, is out this spring, and looks likely to prove equally headline-grabbing. The book imagines what might happen if Christ returned to Earth, and was living in 21st-century New York, and having plenty of sex – with both men and women.

The story is written from the perspectives of 13 of his family, friends and followers – including an old rabbi, a young homeless man, and a surgeon. "It's a serious attempt to write a valid Messiah story," says Frey. "A book which addresses ideas of God and religion, and what it means if they are valid. I personally believe that if the Messiah were to arrive on Earth, he would not be an intolerant person who condemned people to hell for how they lived or who they loved."

Frey has consulted an array of real-life religious and secular experts, from rabbis, Catholic priests and evangelical pastors, to neurosurgeons, lawyers and mental health experts. But, however well-researched the book is, its focus on Christ's sex life will inevitably incite controversy. Why did he think the sex was so important? "Sex is part of love," Frey says, "so if someone is preaching the gospel of love, then sex has to be a part of it. And I don't believe that sex would be limited to sex between men and women. Jesus has sex with people he loves. So yes, in my book the Messiah has sex with men and women."

Frey's pretty sure that he's "going to get blasted" for the book. But then, the writer adds, "I get blasted for everything I do." He insists this wasn't his motivation, however: "If you set out to enrage people, you're just going to write a lame book. If you do it because you believe in what you're writing, you can do something interesting and meaningful. It's easyjust to piss people off."

The Final Testament of the Holy Bible is published by John Murray in April .

Pulse, by Julian Barnes

Barnes's third short story collection, and his first work of fiction since the bestselling Arthur and George. Pulse moves from Italian vineyards to the English seaside, from a tale of Garibaldi spotting his future wife through a telescope while anchored off the Brazilian coast, to the story of a divorced estate agent who falls in love with a European waitress.

Published by Jonathan Cape in January.

The Troubled Man, by Henning Mankell

This is the first new Kurt Wallander novel for a decade, and it will also be the last. The Swedish detective investigates the disappearance of his daughter Linda's prospective father-in-law, a retired naval officer. As Wallander delves into the case of the missing man, he uncovers secrets from the cold war that threaten to cause an unprecedented political scandal, while also looking back over his own past.

Published by Harvill Secker in March.

The Pale King, by David Foster Wallace

The final, unfinished novel from the great Foster Wallace, who killed himself in 2008. It tells of the mind-numbingly boring jobs of employees at an Internal Revenue Service tax centre, and stars a certain "David Wallace". If it's anything like the US writer's masterpiece, Infinite Jest (a "three-stage rocket to the future", according to Don DeLillo), then readers are in for a treat.

Published by Hamish Hamilton in April.

Project X, by Jeffrey Deaver

American thriller writer Deaver – creator of the quadriplegic detective Lincoln Rhyme – follows in the footsteps of Sebastian Faulks to give us his take on James Bond, in this officially sanctioned new story, currently known as Project X. Deaver is giving little away about the plot, but we do know that he's bringing Ian Fleming's creation into the 21st century: 007's more xenophobic, sexist attitudes will be getting a makeover.

Published by Hodder & Stoughton in May.

The Girl in the Polka-Dot Dress, by Beryl Bainbridge

This is the novel Beryl Bainbridge was putting the finishing touches to when she died last July. It's set around the assassination of Bobby Kennedy: several witnesses remembered seeing a mysterious girl wearing a polka-dot dress in the Ambassador Hotel. She was never found, and the book sees the five-time Booker shortlisted author imagining how the girl ended up in Los Angeles that night, and the "terrible act" she was responsible for seven years earlier.

Published by Little, Brown in June.

The Children of Lovers, by Judy Carver

Taking its title from the proverb "the children of lovers are orphans", this memoir sees the author recall her difficult, brilliant, conflicted father, William Golding, as he changed from a poor schoolteacher to a Nobel prize-winning novelist. "When I was older, I tried to suggest to him that people might not like what he was saying," Carver writes. "He swung towards me, his eyes ferocious. 'Your trouble is you want everything to be smooth.'"

Published by Faber & Faber in May.

The Stranger's Child, by Alan Hollinghurst

Hollinghurst's first novel since The Line of Beauty won the Booker in 2004, The Stranger's Child is the intertwined story of two families, from the eve of the first world war to the end of the 20th century. Could another Booker prize be in the offing?

Published by Picador in July.

Dickens, by Claire Tomalin

The Invisible Woman, Tomalin's story of Charles Dickens's relationship with the actress Nelly Ternan, won her a clutch of awards in 1990. Now, in the year before the Dickens bicentenary, she returns to the subject with a full biography of the novelist, examining the paradoxes of his life: from how he deserted his wife yet wrote sentimentally about the family, to how he selflessly supported the poor, yet cut off some of his own relatives.

Published by Penguin in October.

Vagina: A Cultural History, byNaomi Wolf

Wolf, feminist author of The Beauty Myth, looks at the "dark continent" of female sexuality, examining attitudes to the vagina from the Greeks and Romans to the present day, and exploring the ways in which they stand as a metaphor for how women are seen, and how they see themselves.